RMS Centaur
by Hatter of Madness
Summary: She was a tomboy. He was the Triwizard Champion. The ship was doomed. Rated T for future chapters. Slightly AU. Cedric didn't die in GoF, OC is involved. Based loosely off the movie Titanic.
1. Jack Connolly

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**~*~R.M.S. Centaur~*~  
by Hatter of Madness**

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Mr. Jack Connolly was obsessed with the _R.M.S. Centaur_, the wizarding cruise liner that mysteriously sank in December of 1998. He was prepared to search the entire world for that ship. Everything about it fascinated him, from its passengers to the sinking to the ship itself. He had seen pictures of the incredible ocean liner, and had even gone down to the approximate location of the ship's sinking and wreckage. He had seen the ship multiple times, but he was much more interested in a single item: A diamond one of the young women on the ship wore on the night of the sinking. He wasn't interested in the monetary value of the diamond, but he would do anything to get his hands on it.

He wasn't even sure where to begin looking for the diamond, or even if it was real. He had heard of the necklace and knew it existed, but he wasn't sure if it was a real gem in the center or if it, like the other "expensive" artifacts he found, was fake. He had even seen a picture of the girl wearing it in a scrapbook he recovered from the wreck. The scrapbook seemed to be devoted solely to her—there were pictures of her sunbathing, pictures of her staring out of windows...there were hardly any pictures of her just smiling, and, to his alarm, despite the fact that the entire ship was strictly magic people (witches and wizards), not a single picture was moving.

In the very back of the scrapbook was _the_ picture—the one he was looking for, where she had donned the necklace. The caption read "_M. Lewis—December 18, 1998"._ That was the only picture during the time of the journey.

In the picture, the girl had dirty blonde hair, which fell in curls down her back with straight bangs in her face. She had green eyes, hidden from view in most of the picture by glasses, shaped like almonds. Her skin was very pale, as though she had spent her entire life indoors, with thin red lips and rosy cheeks. Her face was ovular, and, as the picture was not moving, she stared unblinkingly at the camera. The large diamond, in between shades of pink and purple, hung around her neck, and she wore a simple T-shirt and cardigan. The picture was from the waist up; from what Connolly could tell, she had her hands folded in her lap. Though she was an ordinary face in an everyday pose—she appeared to be sitting in a chair against the wall of the one of the rooms on the ship—Connolly couldn't help but think she was very, very pretty.

She looked young, too, around sixteen or younger. From the pictures in the scrapbook, he guessed this was her proper age, though it was hard to tell, as they had been submerged in water for years. He wondered if she even lived through the disaster.

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"Are you going down to the wreck again, Jack?"

Connolly had a boat himself, nowhere near the size or importance of the _Centaur,_ he knew, but he routinely went down to the wreckage, just to see the damage done and to see if he could discover Miss Lewis's diamond. And today was one of those days, despite the fact that his colleague, Dave Watson, thought that the diamond, if it existed, was long gone.

"I have to see if I can find it," Connolly said simply.

"For what? The museum you've been trying to start?"

Connolly did not respond, grabbing his wand off the side table.

"Look, Jack," Watson said, following Connolly out of the small bedroom, "we did a little research on survivors. There was no one named 'M. Lewis' on the _Centaur._We've got a Katie and a Braiden, but no one with the first initial 'M'. If she really did exist, she went down with the ship. End of story."

"I'm not looking for a Miss Lewis," Connolly said, not looking at his partner. "I'm looking for a _necklace_ that _belonged_ to an M. Lewis."

"There's no record of her even existing," Watson said.

Connolly shoved the scrapbook in his partner's face. "Except this." Watson took the scrapbook from his partner and flipped through it carefully. "None of these pictures give a first name. None of them give a last name either—except one. The one that proves that there really _was_ a necklace. That there really _was_ a diamond. And that there really _was_ an M. Lewis on the _Centaur. _Maybe she went down with the ship—I don't know. But she existed. And this is proof. And if you care to join me, we're leaving in fifteen minutes."

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However, before they could leave, a tawny owl fluttered onto the shop. Bewildered, Connolly took the letter from the bird, which waited patiently for a response from him. Watson wandered over, as he, too, was curious. Connolly unfolded the piece of parchment, on which was written two sentences.

_I have heard about your fascination with the _Centaur_, as I have read about it in both the _Daily Prophet_ and the_ Quibbler, _and I know you happen to be looking for a diamond that belongs to a young lady on the ship. I was on that ship, and I happen to have the information you're looking for._

Connolly looked at his partner in interest. "I've got to write back."

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**I watched _Titanic_ last night (which, by the way, is my all-time favorite movie. _Ever_) and suddenly this idea fell into my head. I started writing it this morning. I'm not quite sure where this is going, though I liked it at the time. It's kind of based off _Titanic_ (the movie/disaster, but more along the lines of the movie) and um...yeah. I had the _Centaur_ being docked in America because...well, I'm not quite sure really. Whatever. I'm not quite myself today, if I was this chapter and A/N would be a _lot_ longer.**

**-Hatter of Madness**


	2. Maddie Diggory

Soon, Connolly was talking to the woman through the Floo network. "This is Jack Connolly," he greeted. "What can I do for you, Mrs..."

She supplied him the information. "Diggory."

"Mrs. Diggory?"

"I was just wondering if you'd like to hear about the necklace that intrigues you so much."

She was soft spoken and very, very kind and equally as patient. Connolly had even tore the picture out of the scrapbook and showed it to her through the Floo network. "Alright, you have my attention, Diggory," he said, holding up the picture for her to see. It was the picture of Miss Lewis, the one where the young girl had been wearing the necklace in her simple attire. Mrs. Diggory looked at the picture with a sudden light in her eyes. "Can you tell me who the woman in the picture is?"

"Oh, yes," she said calmly. "The woman in the picture is me."

Connolly was shocked. "I'll be God damned," he muttered.

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"You're crazy," Watson said as they waited the arrival of the woman who had written them. "_She's _crazy—she's a nutcase! How do we know that this woman has anything to do with this necklace?"

"_Because_," Connolly said, explaining the situation for what felt like the hundredth time. "Mrs. Diggory _told_ me that the girl in the picture was her when she was seventeen. And I believe her!"

"There _was_ no M. Lewis in the list of survivors!" Watson said again. "There was a Diggory—four of them, one named Maddie_—_which, by the way, would be _M_. Diggory—but not a single M. Lewis! She's a Goddamned liar! If an 'M. Lewis' really existed, it isn't this Diggory chick and she's dead!"

"Everyone who knows about the diamond is supposed to be dead, on this ship, or unreachable, but _she knows!_" Connolly argued.

"And you didn't even think to ask her to bring the necklace?"

Connolly's heart started to sink as he realized he hadn't actually asked Mrs. Diggory if she even still owned the diamond, let alone if she would bring it with her. "I kind of assumed that since we were talking about it she'd bring it," he defended, although he hadn't been thinking that; he had actually been hoping she'd make the connection herself. And I'm going to listen to what she says, and if you run your mouth _one more frickin' time, _I'll ensure that you get to join the _Centaur_ forever! Understand?"

Watson grunted.

At that moment, there was a popping sound as a young woman Apparated to them. She looked very young, around twenty-five by Connolly's guess, yet she looked just like the M. Lewis in the photograph of the diamond and the girl wearing it. Her curls were pulled back into a sloppy bun, giving Connolly and Watson a better view of her face. It was almost exact with the picture. Her eyes were even the exact same shade of green, hidden, too, behind glasses, though they were obviously a different pair than in the pictures of Miss Lewis.

"Polyjuice Potion," Watson murmurred somewhere behind Connolly. The latter chose to ignore him.

"Hello, Mrs. Diggory," he greeted, extending a hand. The woman took one of her own hands and grabbed onto the strap of the bag on her shoulder, then extended her other hand to the man in front of her. "I'm Jack Connolly, we talked over the Floo network."

"Pleased to meet you, Jack," she said in a smooth English accent. Briefly, her eyes flickered over Watson and he straightened, then she returned her focus to Connolly as he addressed her again.

"Can I get you anything, Miss?" he asked, trying to make the woman feel at home. "Some coffee, or..."

"I should like to see my pictures," Mrs. Diggory said. "I do believe you told me you found my scrapbook?"

"Right this way," Mr. Connolly said, leading Mrs. Diggory along a pathway to the room that he kept the book in. While Mrs. Diggory was distracted with the interior of the ship, Watson took this as a moment to talk to his companion.

"A liar," he hissed. "The _Centaur_ sank fifteen years ago, and she claims she was 17 in that picture of the necklace. She's too young to be 32!"

"Looks can be deceiving," was all Connolly had to say. They stopped and Mrs. Diggory looked ahead as they handed her the scrapbook of pictures. She looked at the mahogany book as though it were a child and carefully opened it to the first page, where there was a piece of parchment stuck in. She put her hand over the ink carefully as Connolly summoned a chair for her. She smiled politely and sat down, still staring at the parchment.

"I haven't seen this in so long," she whispered. She looked at each following page without saying a word the whole time. Finally, she fell on the final page, where Connolly had put the picture of her with the necklace back in place. She stared at the picture for a long time.

"Mrs. Diggory, if you don't mind me asking," Connolly said as he, too, pulled up a chair, "why aren't any of these pictures moving?"

The woman smiled. "I'm afraid my answer is going to bore you, Jack," she said looking at the two men before her. "But none of these pictures move because I like them better that way. To me, they capture a moment better. As a moment frozen in time. The _Immobilus _charm was used on each, I'm sure."

Watson frowned. "You mean you didn't put the pictures in this book?"

She, too, frowned. "Me? Merlin, no!" She shook her head. "I didn't own this. It belonged to someone very close to me." And when she said that final sentence, a shy smile crept across her face.

"What is your first name?" Connolly asked very suddenly.

She turned to him, as though questioning why he would ask. However, she said, "Maddie. My name is Maddie."

"Short for anything?" Watson asked, suddenly very interested in everything Maddie had to say.

She shook her head. "I get that a lot," she said, brushing it off. "When I was younger, people would call me Madeliene. But it's not short for anything. It's my legal name."

There was a pause; Connolly wasn't quite sure why he had asked what her real name was, but for whatever reason, he needed to know. He watched as Maddie closed the scrapbook and set it aside carefully. She appeared to be done with it. At that, Connolly took out another book, looking at the word written on the cover carefully. "If you don't mind, Maddie," he said, trying to adjust to using her given name, "we have a book here about the _Centaur._" He handed the book to the woman, and she flipped through it slowly. "It does have a bit of reading, over a hundred pages, but every page has pictures on it," he said. "It's just a rough draft. I wrote it myself after studying the ship for about twelve years now."

She suddenly set it aside with the scrapbook. "Thank you for that fine written analysis, Mr. Connolly," she said, addressing him for the first time with his surname. "Of course the experience of it was somewhat more emotional."

"We'd love to hear anything you have to say, Mrs. Diggory," Connolly said.

Maddie sighed, looking at the giant 12-by-24 picture of the _Centaur_ on the wall to her left. "It's been fifteen years—" she started.

"Just say anything you can remember..."

"Will you let me finish, Mr. Connolly?" she said comically. Watson chuckled somewhere beside Connolly. He turned on a Muggle tape recorder—he had spent five years figuring out how to use it, and now he had a reason to. "It's been fifteen years and I can still fell the steel of the bow. I can still feel the wind on my face at night as we traveled. I can still remember how warm the beds were, how elegant the dining hall was, and how everything felt like either a sweet dream or a beautiful nightmare. _Centaur_ was called the ship of dreams, and it was."

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**Blehh. I just wanted to update and this is really...lame. I copied a lot of _Titanic,_ but I don't really care right now. It's going to be way different than the movie, I promise. So stay with me?**

**-Hatter of Madness**


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